Snark aside, K And b is 13 times as massive as Jupiter, orbiting the star at a distance greater than Pluto at its farthest from the Sun. We've discovered worlds big and small. We've found them orbiting so close to a star they're being literally boiled away, and (possibly) more than double Pluto's farthest distance from the sun (Fomalhaut b). It could be because it's the only system we'd known until recently, but our system is starting to look very pedestrian.

Some "hard" sci-fi is aware of the potential (and now proven!) diversity of planetary systems, but I'm still waiting for pop sci-fi to catch up to this staggering wealth of creative material we've built up just from studying reality. I mean, the layperson's concept of a "cold world" is Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. Basically Siberia. Titan is a moon in our own system that's far more alien than anything supposedly "creative" people dream up.

Stone Meadow:Yo...Phil is blogging over on Slate these days. Who knew?

He'd been talking about it on his old site for at least a week, so most people who follow him knew.

I used to read his site all the time, but I have to say: now that he's been making a big deal about his new tattoo, it's hard to take him seriously, anymore. There's something not quite right about a middle-aged man suddenly deciding to get a tattoo.

Dadoo:Stone Meadow: Yo...Phil is blogging over on Slate these days. Who knew?

He'd been talking about it on his old site for at least a week, so most people who follow him knew.

I used to read his site all the time, but I have to say: now that he's been making a big deal about his new tattoo, it's hard to take him seriously, anymore. There's something not quite right about a middle-aged man suddenly deciding to get a tattoo.

Well, if he starts wearing a white suit, then I'd really start to worry.

Dadoo:Stone Meadow: Yo...Phil is blogging over on Slate these days. Who knew?

He'd been talking about it on his old site for at least a week, so most people who follow him knew.

I used to read his site all the time, but I have to say: now that he's been making a big deal about his new tattoo, it's hard to take him seriously, anymore. There's something not quite right about a middle-aged man suddenly deciding to get a tattoo.

dragonchild:Snark aside, K And b is 13 times as massive as Jupiter, orbiting the star at a distance greater than Pluto at its farthest from the Sun. We've discovered worlds big and small. We've found them orbiting so close to a star they're being literally boiled away, and (possibly) more than double Pluto's farthest distance from the sun (Fomalhaut b). It could be because it's the only system we'd known until recently, but our system is starting to look very pedestrian.

Some "hard" sci-fi is aware of the potential (and now proven!) diversity of planetary systems, but I'm still waiting for pop sci-fi to catch up to this staggering wealth of creative material we've built up just from studying reality. I mean, the layperson's concept of a "cold world" is Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. Basically Siberia. Titan is a moon in our own system that's far more alien than anything supposedly "creative" people dream up.

My understanding is that the current systems can only detect "weird" planets that are sufficiently big, close, fast, or preferably all three. I've wondered what would happen if you used our current techniques on the solar system from say 50 light years out. Jupiter and Saturn seem like they would be too slow for Kepler to pick them up right away from their effect on the Sun.

As far as science fiction goes, you're mainly limited to planets that can support unprotected humans so that's a pretty small range.

ArkPanda:dragonchild: Snark aside, K And b is 13 times as massive as Jupiter, orbiting the star at a distance greater than Pluto at its farthest from the Sun. We've discovered worlds big and small. We've found them orbiting so close to a star they're being literally boiled away, and (possibly) more than double Pluto's farthest distance from the sun (Fomalhaut b). It could be because it's the only system we'd known until recently, but our system is starting to look very pedestrian.

Some "hard" sci-fi is aware of the potential (and now proven!) diversity of planetary systems, but I'm still waiting for pop sci-fi to catch up to this staggering wealth of creative material we've built up just from studying reality. I mean, the layperson's concept of a "cold world" is Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. Basically Siberia. Titan is a moon in our own system that's far more alien than anything supposedly "creative" people dream up.

My understanding is that the current systems can only detect "weird" planets that are sufficiently big, close, fast, or preferably all three. I've wondered what would happen if you used our current techniques on the solar system from say 50 light years out. Jupiter and Saturn seem like they would be too slow for Kepler to pick them up right away from their effect on the Sun.

As far as science fiction goes, you're mainly limited to planets that can support unprotected humans so that's a pretty small range.

How about 'mission of gravity' by Hal Clement. (Grins at the camera) My favorite.

Tillmaster:ArkPanda: dragonchild: Snark aside, K And b is 13 times as massive as Jupiter, orbiting the star at a distance greater than Pluto at its farthest from the Sun. We've discovered worlds big and small. We've found them orbiting so close to a star they're being literally boiled away, and (possibly) more than double Pluto's farthest distance from the sun (Fomalhaut b). It could be because it's the only system we'd known until recently, but our system is starting to look very pedestrian.

Some "hard" sci-fi is aware of the potential (and now proven!) diversity of planetary systems, but I'm still waiting for pop sci-fi to catch up to this staggering wealth of creative material we've built up just from studying reality. I mean, the layperson's concept of a "cold world" is Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. Basically Siberia. Titan is a moon in our own system that's far more alien than anything supposedly "creative" people dream up.

My understanding is that the current systems can only detect "weird" planets that are sufficiently big, close, fast, or preferably all three. I've wondered what would happen if you used our current techniques on the solar system from say 50 light years out. Jupiter and Saturn seem like they would be too slow for Kepler to pick them up right away from their effect on the Sun.

As far as science fiction goes, you're mainly limited to planets that can support unprotected humans so that's a pretty small range.

Haldeman's "The Forever War" featured a lot of combat on very cold planets, pools of liquid methane, etc.

How about 'mission of gravity' by Hal Clement. (Grins at the camera) My favorite.

ArkPanda:I've wondered what would happen if you used our current techniques on the solar system from say 50 light years out.

Jupiter dominates the planetary mass of our system, radiates a lot of heat and is so massive it doesn't revolve around the Sun so much as the two go around a central point (barycenter). It'd be a matter of when, but our current techniques would discover it -- probably several ways. While it would've been impossible just ten years ago, finding Jupiter from 50ly out would be relatively "easy" these days. I think we could eventually discover Saturn as well. Earth would be pushing it. The challenge there is picking up Earth's signal from the "noise" of four much more massive planets. I think we'd discover Venus first, if at all, as it's closer and comparable in mass.

I think all are either too "close" (Jupiter) or too cold and small (Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) to be discovered with direct imaging, so we'd most likely "find" them indirectly. Unfortunately it takes three revolutions to confirm the existence of a planet, but the biggest AND closest of the four -- Jupiter -- takes 12 years per round trip. So for many techniques it'd take over 36 years of constant observation just to detect Jupiter. All that said, if we spent the time and resources, I think it'd eventually happen. Neptune, however, would take 500 years of non-stop observation even if there's enough of a signal in the noise to detect it.

That's one thing I don't see publicly mentioned. I'm not sure how we'd get around it, but we really don't have any sort of technique that would discover a planet like Neptune orbiting another star. It's plenty big for a planet and honestly well within the Sun's Hill sphere, but too small to image and too far out to wait for it to finish its laps. Even among the stars we've surveyed, it's almost a certainty we're missing a LOT of stuff. If we observed our system from 50ly out, the best we can do is find 2-3, maybe four planets.

First we send the religious people over there to first try to buy and eventually slaughter the natives. Then we colonize, rape the women, enslave the wildlife, steal the resources and pave the remaining crap over.

First we send the religious people over there to first try to buy and eventually slaughter the natives. Then we colonize, rape the women, enslave the wildlife, steal the resources and pave the remaining crap over.

First we send the religious people over there to first try to buy and eventually slaughter the natives. Then we colonize, rape the women, enslave the wildlife, steal the resources and pave the remaining crap over.

First we send the religious people over there to first try to buy and eventually slaughter the natives. Then we colonize, rape the women, enslave the wildlife, steal the resources and pave the remaining crap over.